Sewer gas and emanations from sewage and filth will not communicate
typhoid fever directly, but the latter afford nutriment for the growth
of the germ, and after becoming infected, may eventually come in
contact with drinking water or food, and so prove dangerous. Improper
care of discharges of excrement and urine--with the assistance of
flies--are responsible for the enormous typhoid epidemics in military
camps, so that in the late Spanish-American War one-fifth of all our
soldiers in camp contracted the disease. In the upper layers of the
soil typhoid germs may live for six months through frosts and thaws.
The disease is preventable, and will probably be stamped out in time.
In some of the most thickly populated cities in the world, as in
Vienna, its occurrence is most infrequent, owing to intelligent
sanitary control and pure water supply, while in the most salubrious
country districts its inroads are the most serious and fatal through
ignorance and carelessness.
=Development.=--From eight to twenty-three days elapse from the time
of entrance of typhoid germs into the body before the patient is taken
sick. One attack usually protects one against another, but two or
three attacks are not unheard of in the same person.
=Symptoms.=--Typhoid fever is subject to infinite variations, and it
will here be possible only to outline what may be called a typical
case. In a work of this kind the preliminary symptoms are of most
importance in warning one of the probability of an attack, so that the
prospective patient can govern himself accordingly, as in no other
disease is rest in bed of more value. Patients who persist in walking
about with typhoid fever for the first week or so are most likely to
die of the disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account